Reviews of presentations can be soul-numbing, but they always seem to be bring benefit. I guess a review of anything you do over and over in the sales process is always valuable, but presentation reviews seem crucial.
It’s amazing that you can see crappy presentations in all kinds of companies. Sometimes, in a partner discussion, a company will give us an overview of their product. It’s weird to me how often people push this to me….as if some magic demo will give me a moment of clarity. Never happens.
The one common thread in this whole process was somehow making the presentation a conversation and not a lecture (or a monologue or a teaching sessions or a chance for someone to talk for an hour and show how much she knows).
I’m sure plenty of people out there can teach us how to do a PPT or do a software demo. This post is not about some magical trick to use in a preso.
90% of the problems could be solved by following a few guidelines:
- Make it conversational: the audience has to be involved
- Make it interesting – tell a story: people will fade out naturally – ask yourself if what you are saying “really” is interesting. People like stories…
- Make it quick: Audiences do not absorb all the info in a preso, process it like a mainframe, and then come up with a rational calculation. The audience listens and then decides, “Is this going to work or not?” It’s gut call and emotional…..make them like you. Too much info actually hurts you.
- Say it strongly: try assuming that the people know a lot about your product already and just need to see some features. It’ll show in your attitude when you are confident and relaxed. DO NOT feel like you need to “prove” anything – your product is already awesome
- Have some fun: be a human being…your audience is made up of them….you are not speaking at the UN
I think the whole preso process makes people nervous – stage fright is real here…especially when people practice. Still, if people would just follow these rules, we’d all have a lot more fun in our presos.
